Doc Brown may have hit it on the nose when he wildly guessed that there was a problem with Earth’s gravitational pull in the future, because there’s something off in Hollywood in 2018. We’ve had an influx of remakes and reboots of well-known and little-known franchises, all for the sake of nostalgia. But for some reason, we’re clamoring for more.

A new poll reveals that the next movie franchise remake that audiences want is Back to the Future. That, and a slew of other titles like The Matrix and The Hunger Games, because we can’t ever let things die. See the results of the franchise remake poll below.

The Matrix seemed like a franchise tailor-made for Jet Li. The Wachowskis‘ mind-bending sci-fi series that began in 1999 featured brooding heroes in black coats with insane martial arts skills — all elements that Li had down pat.

And the Chinese action star was actually offered a part as Seraph in The Matrix ReloadedandThe Matrix Revolutions, only to turn it down. But he has a good reason for turning down a part in the defining sci-fi franchise of the ’90s and early 2000s.

(Welcome to Comic Book Drive-In, a series where comic and movie fans Jazmine Joyner and Rosie Knight recommend brand new, ongoing, and completed comic book series that tie into classic films and new releases.)

This issue of Comic Book Drive-In is all about The Matrix. Arguably the Wachowski sisters’ masterpiece, The Matrix is a groundbreaking science-fiction flick which was a cinematic representation of the siblings’ love for Japanese film, Hong Kong cinema, anime, and western comics.

We decided this would be a prime pick for Comic Book Drive-In as comics are literally in the DNA of the film – comic book artists were integral to the film’s vision, with Geof Darrow designing the real world of “Zion” and Steve Skroce storyboarding the original Matrix pitch – and we couldn’t wait to suggest some of our favorite books that complement this science fiction classic.

Do you still partake of physical media for movies – and have you made the leap to 4K? If so, Redbox has some good news: they’re going to start renting 4K movies…but only for certain titles, and in certain markets.

(Welcome to Now Stream This, a column dedicated to the best movies streaming on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and every other streaming service out there.)

Need something to stream? What a coincidence! I have a whole list of streaming titles below! Good think you clicked on this link. Below you’ll find titles streaming on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and more. There’s the political thriller All The President’s Men, the game-changing The Matrix, Steven Spielberg’s misunderstood A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Peter Jackson’s very long King Kongremake, the surprisingly funny and sexy Sleeping With Other People, and more. Drama, horror, rom-coms, true stories – you want it, you’ve got it.

(Welcome to The Unpopular Opinion, a series where a writer goes to the defense of a much-maligned film or sets their sights on a movie seemingly beloved by all. In this edition: we go to bat for The Matrix Reloaded on its 15th anniversary.)

If the burden of a sequel is to equal or better its predecessor, then few movie sequels have inherited as great a burden as The Matrix Reloaded did when it first hit theaters 15 years ago today on May 15, 2003.

The first Matrix movie gripped the public imagination, tapping into something deep in the collective unconscious. Steeped in grandeur, a sense of pre-millennial purpose, it was a motion picture that wielded the same kind of myth-making mojo as the original Star Wars trilogy. If anything, back in 1999, The Matrix was more Star Wars than Star Wars, as evinced by how widely it overshadowed The Phantom Menace that year as a cultural phenomenon.

The Matrix Reloaded’s legacy as a sequel is such that it and The Matrix Revolutions often get lumped together as inferior specimens. In terms of simple storytelling effectiveness — the lucidity of their dream-weaving as movie machines — both films are inferior to the smooth-running high-concept engine that was the first Matrix. But while the law of diminishing returns is at play in The Matrix trilogy and Reloaded does show signs of the impending system failure that Revolutions would bring about, it actually manages, despite its infamous cave rave scene, to expand the series mythology in new and interesting ways. A decade and a half later, the film’s dismantling of the oosen One narrative set up in The Matrix gives it a different but no less intriguing pull, one that takes to the freeway and attempts to broaden the viewer’s perspective on reality in a manner that now seems ahead of its time.

Writer Zak Penn has been offering updates on the potential Matrix reboot since March of last year. Now, Penn, who is out on the circuit promoting Ready Player One, has offered new details, telling us where his The Matrix reboot currently stands.

The end of this month will see the release of the anticipated adaptation of Ready Player One. The novel from Ernest Cline is coming to the big screen courtesy of director Steven Spielberg, who seems like the only director who could pull off a pop culture mash-up of this scale – especially with all of its key references to some of the most iconic blockbusters ever made.

Now a new set of Ready Player One posters ups the ante when it comes to mashing up nostalgic movies from decades past. Each of the posters takes the film’s digital characters and places them on the poster of a beloved movie from the past. Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club, Beetlejuice, Blade Runner, The Goonies, Risky Business, and more posters were fully recreated with Ready Player One‘s game avatar characters from The OASIS. Read More »

Craig Drake is one of our favorite artists paying tribute to our favorite movies and TV shows year after year, and he’s also one of the few who can be relied upon to have a solo gallery exhibition every couple of years. This past weekend brought the Craig Drake Solo Show 4 to Hero Complex Gallery in Los Angeles, including pieces paying tribute to The Iron Giant, Kill Bill, Gremlins, Suicide Squad, The Royal Tenenbaums, Ex Machina, Labyrinth, Spider-Man and more.

The entire collection of new work from Craig Drake is available for you to check out (and purchase) below. Read More »

Typically, the end of October and start of November signals the heart of autumn: crisp air, falling leaves, Halloween, pumpkins (David S. or otherwise), and the proliferation of pumpkin spice flavors applied to every type of food imaginable. But it’s 103 degrees in Los Angeles today and there are at least more 100-plus degree days on the horizon, so please forgive me if I’m not quite in the spirit of the season yet.

When I’m done shaking my fist at the heavens, I’ll go inside and try to drown my weather-related sorrows in a solid batch of Netflix movies. movies. Luckily, we have a list of all of the TV shows and movies leaving Netflix in November 2017, and we’ll highlight a few of them that are worth cramming in before this month comes to a close.Read More »